The present invention pertains to convertible furniture and more particularly pertains to a sofa-bed which is particularly suitable for use in a vehicle.
Sofa-beds are pieces of furniture that are transformable into a sofa or a bed. Some sofa-beds are particularly useful secured to the floor of recreational vehicles to provide passengers both with a comfortable seat, and because of their transformability, a place to recline or sleep while traveling. The interior of these vehicles, particularly as it relates to a recreational van, provides a pair of side-by-side seats in the front and another pair of seats or a sofa behind them. Proceeding rearwardly of the vehicle interior is a sofa or sofa-bed. An access door is usually provided in the rear of the vehicle for conveniently placing items such as suit cases behind the sofa. A table, refrigerator or other accessories may be provided between the second pair of seats or sofa and the sofa-bed as desired, usually depending upon how commodious the interior.
This presents problems in that extra space is required of previous sofa beds, since the back of the sofa must move rearwardly when the sofa is transformed into a bed. In other words, the back of the sofa must be positioned an adequate distance from the rear door of the vehicle to allow for the sofa to be converted into a bed. This means that passenger leg-room or the space where refrigerators and/or other accessories are normally positioned is compromised. Thus, when considering the interior of the vehicle, one is often forced to elect between having a sofa-bed or a table, but not both in his van.
Another problem is that sofa-beds heretofore available are constructed of an indivisible seat and back mounted on a base that is secured to the floor of a vehicle like that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,543,675. Therefore, those passengers utilizing the sofa-bed must all be seated erect or must all be lying down. This is also true of the motorized seat bed disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,756,034. Furthermore, these sofas cannot be moved backward and forward while they are in their respective seat and bed positions. Thus, maximum utilization of the vehicle's interior space cannot be utlized.
Lastly, because prior sofa-beds have folding and sliding parts that join the seat and the back, pulling and pushing these parts often causes them to kink and in many instances lock. This is unacceptable. An alternative sofa-bed usable in a vehicle, described in Stewart, U.S. Pat. No. 4,756,034, issued on Jul. 12, 1988, has a motorized linkage. That motorized seat bed avoids many of the kinking and locking problems, but requires its passengers all to be seated fully erect or all to be lying down and that seat bed cannot be moved backward and forward while it is in its seat or bed position.
Therefore it is highly desirable to provide an improved sofa-bed.
It is also highly desirable to provide an improved sofa-bed that can be positioned with its back and base against a wall and yet be moved between a sofa position and a bed position.
It is also highly desirable to provide an improved sofa-bed that has paricular usefullnes as a recreational vehicle allowing maximum utilization of a vehicle's interior space.
It is also highly desirable to provide an improved sofa-bed that can be moved backward and forward while it is in its respective seat or bed post ions while its base remains stationary.
It is also highly desirable to provide an improved sofa-bed that is divisible so that part of the sofa-bed can be in a seat position while at the same time another part of the sofa-bed can be in a bed position.
It is also an object of the invention to provide an improved sofa bed that is divisible so that part of the sofa-bed can be backward while at the same time another part of the sofa-bed can be forward.
It is finally highly desirable to provide an improved sofa-bed which meets all of the above desired features.